This invention relates to apparatus for dispensing liquids and is especially suitable for use with relatively viscous liquids, such as liquid soap.
The prior art discloses numerous types of dispensers for liquids. These dispensers generally include a supporting structure, a supply tank, a pump communicating with such supply tank and some form of nozzle for conveying the discharge of the pump to the user. While many of these dispensers have functioned in a generally satisfactory manner, they frequently have exhibited one or more of several features disadvantageous to the purchasers and also the users thereof.
Disadvantages exhibited by such dispensers have included difficulties in filling the associated supply tanks and the tendency of the liquid material to drip from the nozzle at times when the dispenser is not being actuated, thus causing unattractive accumulations of the liquid beneath the dispenser. Many of these dispensers have also required the cooperative use of both hands of a user in their operation, a manner of operation that frequently may be inconvenient to a user. Additionally, such dispensers as are capable of one-hand operation frequently are so configured as to render difficult the dispensing of soap into the palm of the user's hand, the most desirable place of deposition. Such prior art dispensers have also lacked any convenient means of adjusting the volume of liquid which is dispensed by each actuation of the pump. Other problems associated with many such prior art dispensers have related to the failure to provide means for a reserve supply of the liquid such that the dispenser may be refilled on a regularly scheduled basis with little danger of exhausting the supply of liquid prior to such refilling.